


Contact

by Schrodingers_Rufus



Series: Last Chance [2]
Category: Marble Hornets
Genre: Fix-It, Gen, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-22
Updated: 2017-02-22
Packaged: 2018-09-26 06:26:54
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,510
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9871427
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Schrodingers_Rufus/pseuds/Schrodingers_Rufus
Summary: It's the summer of 2006, Jay's got a headful of information from another timeline, and he's trying to make things right.Apparently, the first step is a late-night burger run with Tim and Brian.





	

“Hey, Alex, do you have Tim’s number? Oh. Uh, yeah, sorry about that. I must’ve forgotten to transfer the numbers to my phone. I’m not really by a computer right now. No, I swear, I’m fine, I just--Thanks. Thanks, I definitely owe you one.”  


\---

“Hi, I’m--can you transfer me to the electronics department? I’m uh, looking for a camera, and I thought I’d call around and ask about prices.” 

\---

“Mom? No, no reason. Just thought I’d, I dunno, check in.”

\---

Jay pulled the thin sweatshirt tighter around himself, hand shaking as he locked the car door behind him. The wind was picking up, and with what little sunlight was left, he could see thick, black clouds rolling in. It was summer--he _knew_ it was supposed to be summer--but a chill had still managed to seep into his bones, one he couldn’t completely attribute to the oncoming storm. His mind flicked back--Entry #17, Entry #20--the strange comments about the cold, wearing jackets in the middle of the afternoon. It was only the beginning of _June_ ; things _shouldn’t_ have been moving this fast. 

He pushed open the door of the McDonald's and slid into a booth, the brightly-colored pleather seats snagging on his jeans. He’d order later.

He tried calling Tim earlier in the evening, asking to meet--well, he tried texting first, but Tim’s phone rejected it. Tim’s response was short, blunt; he was staying with Brian, so he wouldn’t be able to just get up and leave. Jay, making a split-second decision that he hoped he wouldn’t regret, told Tim that Brian was welcome to come along, and that it was _really_ important, and that he’d pay for their food if that helped any. (Apparently, it did.)

Jay checked his watch. The rain started coming down.

Jay checked his watch again. With some effort, he slid back out of the booth and ordered a small box of fries. 

Jay checked his watch again. He flipped his phone open to check for messages. He missed Twitter.

There was a clatter at the door, the loud roar of rain-on-pavement, and Jay jerked upright to look. Two figures, half-soaked and dripping, one holding his jacket closed in shaking fists and the other pulling the hood down from over his head and _no, no, no, that wasn’t right._

The hooded figure-- _Brian, he knew that was Brian_ \--scanned the crowd, spotting Jay and waving, and Jay managed a half-wave back, but he couldn’t meet his eyes, too busy staring at his sweatshirt. ( _Had he ever worn that in the tapes? He couldn’t have--if Jay hadn’t caught it, the viewers would, right?_ ) 

“Hey.” Brian slid into the booth across from Jay, and Tim followed, making one last glance at the door. Leaning forward onto his elbows with a wry smile, Brian continued, “How’d the doctor’s appointment go?” 

“Fine,” Jay managed, still dazed, still processing. He tried to pull himself together. “I’m fine, just--just dehydrated, that’s all. Low blood sugar, too--maybe I skipped lunch or something. They just had me drink some water and orange juice and let me go.”

Brian raised an eyebrow, but said nothing.

Tim spoke up then, eyes cast down at the table. “What’s with the camera?”

“Cam--? Oh. That’s just for--” Jay mentally flicked through a list of excuses, none of them good. Thinking back to the ribbing his viewers gave him after “a documentary on hotels”, he cringed inwardly. Jay guessed honesty was the best policy, though given who he’d just realized he was dealing with, he could never be sure. “That’s...sort of related to what I wanted to talk to you about.” 

Tim fixed Jay with an unreadable look, reaching out to gently turn the camera lens away.

He didn’t turn it off, though, so Jay counted it as a win. 

Brian sat back, grinning. “Well, before we get down to anything serious, I’d say dinner is in order.” 

“We already _had_ dinner,” Tim mumbled.

“Second dinner, then.” Brian nudged Tim with an elbow. “Get out, I’m being summoned by the siren-song of free food.” 

Tim obliged, snickering under his breath. “Does this count as ‘carbo-loading’?” 

“God, it still sounds like a foreign language when you say it.” Brian made a show of stretching his leg. “And as the only one here who is a newly-minted second-year member of _the_ most renowned university cross-country team in the county, I say yes. Yes it does.”

Tim rolled his eyes, muttering about it being the _only_ university team in the county, and Jay followed them silently, listening to their banter with the camera held low. He ordered last, indulging in a fried chicken sandwich--a dollar more than a regular burger, but he didn’t have to pay for a hotel room that night, so he could afford to splurge a bit, even with the cost of Brian and Tim’s food factored in.

Soon they were back at the booth, trays in hand, and Jay could feel the time he had left to put off the conversation running out. He took a bite of his sandwich. 

“So,” Brian said through a mouthful of reconstituted beef, “What’s up?” 

Jay forced himself to finish chewing and swallow, feeling Brian and Tim’s eyes boring into his skull the longer he took. “It’s, uh. About today.” 

Brian nodded, waiting for him to continue. Tim’s eyes flickered to the window before settling back on Jay, and Jay had to resist the urge to turn his head to see what he’d been looking at. 

Jay took a deep breath. “So, I did see something, out at Rosswood. That wasn’t some joke, that was. That was real.” Jay rubbed at his eyes before continuing. “And that thing that I saw, it was dangerous. I _know_ it’s dangerous, but if you asked me how I knew, you’d probably call me...y’know, crazy or something.” 

Tim’s mouth constricted in a thin line, and Brian leaned back, crossing his arms. “Try me.” 

“That’s--that’s why I called you guys here, I guess.” Jay drummed his fingers gently against the top of the camera, now sitting back on the table. “Well, Tim, specifically. Because I, uh, I know you’d know what I’m talking about, for the same reason why I know that thing’s dangerous.” 

Tim pulled his hand off the table, but for a second Jay thought he saw it shaking. “We’ve only seen each other once, maybe twice before today. What the hell makes you ’know I’d know’?”

“Because--” Jay didn’t have a good answer, and he knew it. He sank down to the table, hands gripping his hair and pulling. 

“What’d you see out there?” Brian asked, more gently than Jay deserved. 

Jay forced himself to sit back up, to let go of his head. Instead he gripped the handle of the camera, still stiff from disuse. “I saw...well, it looks sort of human, but it’s really clearly not. It’s like a man, but the arms and legs are too long, and the face is--” 

Jay barely had time to notice the sound of a tray hitting the floor before Tim’s fists were clenched in his shirt, yanking him up and out of the booth. 

“Who put you up to this?” Tim was wild-eyed, feral. “ _Alex?_ ” 

Jay tried to push back, mind still reeling too hard to put up a decent fight. “I-- _nobody_ , I--”

“Bull _shit_.” Tim’s face was close, too close, and Jay winced as saliva hit his cheek. “I don’t know who told you, but it’s _not funny_ \--” 

And then Brian was there, looping his arms under Tim’s, pulling him back and away and forcing him to lose his grip on Jay’s shirt. Jay scrambled backwards just as Tim escaped, turning to face Brian with a wide-eyed, painful expression Jay finally pegged as _betrayal_.

“It was you, wasn’t it.” Tim spoke softly, voice shaking. “I know I had one of those--those episodes when I was staying at your house. You told me I did. You said I didn’t say any--anything about what I saw, but _how am I supposed to believe that?_ ” Tim reeled back, and though Jay looked away when his fist connected, he kept the camera steady. 

Brian started to stammer an explanation, an apology, maybe something else, when a woman in a uniform rounded the counter, shouting at the three of them to get out and threatening to call the police. 

They found themselves cowering under the narrow overhang, backs against the wall of the restaurant. Tim was still shaking, and Jay knew he should wait until Tim cooled off, but he had to say _something_.    

“Nobody _told me_ but you, Tim,” Jay started to pace, limited by the narrow strip of dry sidewalk. “But you don’t remember. Nobody remembers. I know things from--I just know things, alright? And I know you think that thing’s not real, but I swear, Tim, it is, and if we don’t keep it away from everybody, people are going to end up _dead_.” 

Tim stared. 

“I’m--I’m from the future, I guess--Iike, like one of those movies, where time resets, but only one person remembers, and I don’t know how many more chances I get, but we _have to fix this_ , or what’s the point?” Jay covered his face with his free hand, taking a deep breath. “And I guess that’s. The truth,” he finished haltingly, afraid to look up and see disbelief. 

“Prove it.” Tim’s voice was hard.

Brian spoke up more quietly, and when Jay finally looked up, he could see that he was nursing a black eye. His posture was unusually hunched, withdrawn. “Tell us something you...couldn’t know.”

A hundred thousand ideas flashed through Jay’s mind, none of them good, but he’d already started talking, “Okay, that site where we had to host our post-production projects last semester? YouTube? That gets...really big. And there’s this place where--where people post really short messages, like ‘microblogging’, I think they call it, and that--everybody uses that, and--and--” Stupid, _stupid_. He needed to say something they could verify. “Tim, I’ve--I’ve seen your medical records. Somebody--” Brian, but he couldn’t very well say that. “--Somebody steals them from your doctor’s office, in 2012, and gives them to me. You used to be a patient at--at that hospital that burned down, near Rosswood, and you’ve got these pills, anticonvulsants, I think, and they don’t fix everything, but they help, because that thing, when it’s nearby, people start having seizures, and--” Jay could hear his voice climbing, becoming more hysterical, but he couldn’t stop it. “--you gave them to me, once, and I told you to cut it out, because they were just a band-aid, they couldn’t actually _fix_ anything, but--” 

“Shut up,” Tim cut him off, voice rough. 

Jay shut up. 

“Say you’re right,” Tim started, warily. “Say that thing’s real. And it’s been real. And you’re from the future. What next?” 

Jay leaned heavily against the wall. “Well, first thing’s first: We stop Alex’s movie.” 

Brian snorted quietly. “I think we can call that a mercy killing.” 

Jay grimaced. “More than you know.” 

Tim whirled on him, eyes wide. “We’re not gonna--”

“No!” Jay waved his hands in surrender. “But if we don’t get Alex away from Rosswood and that thing, he...might. With the, uh, killing.” One hand absent-mindedly rubbed at his side. 

Tim and Brian were silent at that. Jay didn’t mind; it gave him more time to think. 

Finally, Brian spoke up. “So, what _is_ with the camera?” 

“A few things.” Jay held it higher. “It’s mostly for--for memory. I--well, all of us, really--started losing memory, so I kept the tapes around so I could look back and see what happened. I also had--had to show people. Warn them, and stuff. It shows up on the tapes, so that’s proof. Last thing was sort of a bonus: it messes with electronics, so sometimes you can pick up on the camera when it’s around. I mean, usually at that point, it’s too late, but it’s still useful sometimes.” Jay cut himself off. He’d put too much thought into this. Granted, that camera was probably the only thing that kept him alive for four years and seventy-nine entries, so he guessed he owed it the time.

“Sorry I asked,” Brian said, grimacing.

“Sorry I punched you in the face,” Tim said quickly. At Brian’s raised eyebrow, he kept going. “Sorry, I was just thinking about it, and I...” Jay could see the lighter in his hand, though he didn’t take out a cigarette. “But if this turns out to be some Candid Camera bullshit, you _are_ getting another black eye.” 

Brian shot Jay a look, and with a start, Jay lowered the camera.

Brian turned to Tim, though Tim’s eyes were still locked on the pavement. When he spoke, he spoke quietly, almost too quietly for Jay to hear. Jay hoped the microphone was strong enough to pick it up. “If it helps back up his story, I...think I’ve seen it. Out the window, last time you slept over.” 

Tim stared. Jay did too, for that matter. 

“Tall guy, no face?” Brian mimed as he spoke. “Wearing a suit?” 

“ _Holy shit,_ ” Tim whispered.

“I thought I was just misremembering what I saw, but, uh.” Brian scratched at the back of his head. “Guess not.” 

“Guess not,” Tim agreed, still wearing that thousand-yard stare.

The rain started to let up. 

“Now that you’ve been...warned and all, I guess I should head back.” Jay tried to remember the address of the apartment he’d rented that summer. It was fuzzy, but he could probably get there on his own. He hid his camera under his sweatshirt. “I got your numbers from Alex, so it shouldn’t be too hard to keep in touch.”  

Brian stepped forward. “No.” 

Jay turned on his heel, already halfway into the rain. “No, what?” 

“No, we’re not _splitting up._ ” Tim answered for him. 

“If we’re in a horror movie, we’re not breaking rule number one.” Brian paused. “I mean, rule number two is ‘don’t have sex,’ but I don’t think we’ve got a problem there.” 

Tim shoved him, and he snickered triumphantly.     

Jay sidled back under the overhang, hesitant. “Then what? You all come over to my place? Crash on the floor of my studio apartment?” 

“Au contraire,” Brian raised a finger. “My parents were already expecting one friend to sleep over. I doubt they’d mind two.” 

Jay’s mind locked up on ‘friend’, and he could feel himself smiling, despite efforts to the contrary. “Okay. Alright. That’s not how I expected tonight ending at all, but, that makes. A lot of sense.” 

“Of course it does.” Brian slung an arm around Jay’s shoulder, and Jay stiffened with surprise. “Existential terror sleepover.”

“Let’s, uh, try to not die,” Tim added.

Jay let himself be herded to Brian’s car. “Yeah, let’s...not do that this time.”

Brian stopped in his tracks. “What?”

“Nothing!”


End file.
